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Toronto Marlies beat Oklahoma City Barons 5-3, lead AHL Western final 2-1

Marlies goalie Ben Scrivens makes a save in the first period of Game 3 on Monday afternoon. Scrivens made several big saves in his ninth playoff victory. (ANDREW FRANCIS WALLACE / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By Bob MitchellSports Reporter

Mon., May 21, 2012

With two goals, including the winner, you would think Matt Frattin had a terrific game in the Marlies’ 5-3 victory over the Oklahoma City Barons on Monday.

Not quite, Marlies coach Dallas Eakins said while praising the stellar netminding of Ben Scrivens, who made a half-dozen clutch saves in the opening period alone.

“I actually thought Matt had an off game, but that’s the danger of that young man,” Eakins said after Toronto took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven AHL Western final. “He can be off but if you give him a little space, he’s going to throw a couple of pucks at the net.

“So good for him. He got some really timely goals for us.”

Frattin’s goals, his seventh and eighth to lead all AHL playoff scorers, came at crucial moments before a near-sellout crowd of 7,327 at Ricoh Coliseum.

The first came with 43 seconds left in the second period and sent Toronto into the third with a 3-2 lead after blowing a 2-0 advantage. Goals by Bryan Rodney and Chris VandeVelde, less than 90 seconds apart with under three minutes to go, had evened the score for the visitors.

With 9:04 left in the third, Magnus Paajarvi, Edmonton’s first pick in the 2009 draft, beat Scrivens and it looked as if the game was headed for overtime. But with 2:02 to go, Frattin took a pass from Philippe Dupuis, skated over the blue line and, using a defender as a screen, snapped the winner past Barons goalie Yann Danis.

Jerry D’Amigo clinched it with his seventh of the playoffs, an empty-netter with seven seconds on the clock.

The Marlies would advance to the Calder Cup final with home wins on Wednesday and Friday.

Dupuis and captain Ryan Hamilton staked Toronto a 2-0 lead with first period power-play goals. But it was Scrivens, 9-2 in the playoffs, who made it possible, Eakins said.

“Almost all of our forwards kept turning the puck over. When you do that you spend a whole lot of time in your own zone, and you don’t want to spend a lot of time in your zone against (Oklahoma),” Eakins said. “It took a lot of screaming and yelling, but I thought we got better as the game went on. It was a long way from the best game that we ever played.

“Scrivens kept us in the game early. He came up with some big saves. You can’t really fault him on the tying goal. The crowd might have thought it was a soft goal, but Paajarvi wanted to shoot. He cocked his stick and it looked like the puck was coming, but he held onto it for a second and Ben had already reacted. It’s really hard to recover from that.”

Frattin said he felt tired.

“It was really hot. I probably lost 10 pounds of water out there,” said Frattin, who lost linemate Nazem Kadri to an undisclosed injury in the first period. “I executed on my chances, but I just didn’t have the legs today.

“We played pretty well for about 35 minutes and then we let up. We took too many penalties. Our power play was awesome today. We made a lot of turnovers that we definitely don’t want to make in the next game. We need to get pucks deep and use the walls and keep skating.

“The came out hard and fast. They’re a good road team, a good team all-round. We kind of took a backseat for a while, but we turned it around.”

On the winner, Frattin came off the bench and took a quick lead pass.

“I didn’t want to turn it over at the blue line,” he said. “I wanted to use their D as a screen and kind of caught the goalie. I was coming in with some speed.”

The former North Dakota star’s confidence appears to be growing with every game.

“I’m shooting the puck more and getting it on the net,” said Frattin, one of several Leafs who joined the Marlies for their playoff run.. “With the Leafs (eight goals, seven assists in 56 games) I was either missing the net or looking for a pass first. I just have to use my shot.”

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